Many can agree that over the last two decades, platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have become culturally normalised. What feels less discussed is how they have quietly reshaped our understanding of identity itself.

We no longer simply have identities. We manage them. Optimise them. Curate them.

It is now common to see ordinary people become celebrities on and off the internet, not because they were discovered by institutions, but because technological interfaces have taught them how to be visible. Participants from Married at First Sight Australia are an obvious example. Individuals who began as private citizens leave the show with follower counts, sponsorship deals, and carefully engineered public personas. Their lives do not merely continue. They convert.

This cultural shift is not only about fame. It is about how identity is reorganised under platform capitalism.

Before social media, most ordinary people lived privately. Photographs were stored in albums. Videos were archived. Visibility was limited and rarely monetised. The self existed socially, but not strategically.

With the rise of Instagram, that changed. The platform did not just allow expression. It structured it. Uploads, likes, follower metrics, Stories, engagement analytics. These features did not simply facilitate communication. They created a feedback loop. The self became measurable.

Carah and Shaul argue that Instagram “encourages users to see themselves as models,” teaching them how to pose, frame, and manage self-representation. Driel and Dumitrica observe that what began as amateur documentation has increasingly shifted toward professionalised content aimed at notoriety and profit.

What is at stake here is not merely aesthetics. It is the transformation of everyday identity into a market-facing performance.

It is perhaps for this reason that I am not particularly performative on my private social media accounts. I am not opposed to new forms of communication or entertainment. But I am cautious about turning my everyday self into spectacle. I remember colleagues asking why I am not more active online, why I do not post constantly or cultivate visibility. The answer is simple: I am preserving my identity from becoming a product. I occasionally share my books or reflections on my private social media, and I am easily reachable through direct messages. But I do not perform there. I do not curate spectacle. I choose to remain socially present without becoming strategically visible.

The platform teaches a subtle lesson: your life can be content. Your content can be value. Your value can be monetised.

This is where influencer culture emerges.

Traditional celebrity once depended on institutional gatekeepers. Television networks, record labels, and film studios.

Fame required permission. Influencer culture disrupts that model by centring ordinariness. It promises that anyone can become visible. Anyone can cultivate an audience. Anyone can brand themselves.

It would be a mistake, however, to limit this transformation to professional influencers alone. While some users consciously monetise their accounts, the logic of self-branding extends far beyond those who earn sponsorship deals. The vast majority of social media users, whether they profit financially or not, participate in subtle forms of self-promotion. They curate impressions, negotiate visibility, signal lifestyle, and perform versions of success to peers and acquaintances.

In this sense, the influencer is not an exception. They are an intensified example. The entrepreneurial logic of the self has diffused across the platform ecosystem. Even those who do not monetise their identity are still invited to measure it, optimise it, and compare it.

This diffusion is not accidental. It is ideological.

The promise that “anyone” can become visible is deeply tied to neoliberal individualism.

As Khamis et al. argue, social media users increasingly become “entrepreneurs of the self,” transforming personal identity into a branded commodity. Success becomes a matter of self-investment. Failure becomes self-responsibility. The cultural message is clear: if you are not visible, you did not optimise enough.

Identity becomes labour.

Hearn describes self-branding as a “cycle of self-representation” in which individuals continuously work on themselves to produce cultural and economic value. The self is not simply expressed. It is produced. Edited. Strategised. Reframed according to market logics.

This is not neutral. When individuals internalise responsibility for turning themselves into marketable assets, broader structural responsibilities fade into the background. Neoliberal ideology celebrates freedom, autonomy, and self-enterprise. Yet it simultaneously transfers risk from institutions to individuals.

The influencer is framed as empowered. But the influencer is also precarious.

Consider Martha Kalifatidis, a 2019 participant from Married at First Sight Australia.

Martha built a significant following on Instagram, partnering with beauty and fashion brands such as MC Cosmetics and Calvin Klein. Her public identity became synonymous with aspirational beauty culture. The relatability of her reality TV origin merged with the polish of professional branding.

Yet authenticity within influencer culture is fragile.

After posting a video containing a racist slur, Martha lost a major brand partnership following public backlash. Followers contacted the sponsoring brand. Screenshots circulated. Content that had been deleted continued to exist in collective memory. The same audience that sustains influencer careers can destabilise them.

This moment reveals something critical about identity under platform capitalism. Influencers are encouraged to cultivate authenticity, to build parasocial intimacy, to make followers feel like friends. But as Driel and Dumitrica argue, this authenticity is “calibrated amateurism,” a careful balance between appearing ordinary and operating professionally.

The identity must feel real. But it must also be brand-safe.

The influencer may appear autonomous, but autonomy has limits. The deeper asymmetry lies between influencers and the platforms that host them. Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms, controls algorithmic visibility, monetisation structures, and Community Guidelines. Cotter argues that although influencers attempt to decode and negotiate the algorithm, the ultimate control over reach and visibility remains with the platform owner.

Influencers labour on identity. Platforms own infrastructure.

This distinction matters.

While influencer culture has disrupted traditional media marketing, creating new pathways for individuals to monetise audiences without television gatekeepers, power has not disappeared. It has shifted. Influencers can attract advertisers independently, but they do so within systems they do not own. The algorithm can change. Visibility can drop. Accounts can be suspended. Revenue streams can evaporate.

The neoliberal narrative suggests self-sovereignty. But platform capitalism reveals dependency.

Identity, in this ecosystem, becomes both asset and liability. It is the source of income and the site of risk. It is continuously evaluated by audiences, brands, and algorithms. It must remain authentic, yet compliant. Distinct, yet advertiser-friendly. Relatable, yet aspirational.

The influencer era did not simply create new celebrities. It reorganised what it means to exist publicly. The self is no longer merely social. It is infrastructural. It feeds engagement systems. It generates data. It sustains advertising economies.

What appears as empowerment is also extraction.

And so the question is not whether influencers have power. Clearly, many do. The question is whose interests are ultimately served when identity becomes platform labour.

In the age of Instagram, identity is no longer just who you are.

It is what the system can measure, monetise, and moderate.

“In Veiled Identity, I examine how visibility, labour, and power converge — and how identity is often shaped by systems long before it feels like choice.”